Three-dimensional (3-D) visual effects have been around since the 1950s. Conventionally, 3-D visual effects have been realized in part by having the viewers wear glasses having a pair of polarized lens, a pair of chromatically opposite lens, or shutter glass spectacles. More recently, lens-free 3-D visual effects have been realized by using multiple cameras to capture multiple angles of a scene, wherein a monitor, employing a lenticular lens array, reconstructs the multiple views for display to the viewers. Such an arrangement is generally expensive and heavy. Another technique for producing lens-free 3-D visual effects is employing a parallax barrier that can reconstruct multiple views of a 3-D scene for display to viewers. The parallax barrier is relatively lower in cost and lighter in weight, as compared a monitor employing a lenticular lens array.
A 3-D autostereoscopic display based on parallax barrier realizes 3-D visual effects in part by having different pixels carrying different views of a 3-D scene. Such arrangement provides a relatively good 3-D effect, has a relatively low cost, is relatively light weight, and has a relatively lower intensity, than the aforementioned arrangements or techniques. One significant deficiency of this arrangement though is that two-dimensional (2-D) content tends to be blurry when passed through the parallax barrier for display to the viewers. An active parallax barrier has been employed to allow a user to manually switch the barrier on for the display of 3-D content and off for the display of 2-D content, so that the 2-D content is clearly displayed. However, such arrangement is inconvenient, particularly due to the parallax barrier having to be switched on and off manually by a user, and it is generally not useful for videos or slideshows.
Today, there is no way of efficiently controlling the display of 3-D content and 2-D content via the same display without 2-D content appearing to be blurry and/or without a user having to manually switch the parallax barrier on and off. The above-described deficiencies of today's systems are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.